Kaizen, which translates to "improvement" in Japanese, is one of the basic concepts of lean production. It focuses on eliminating waste and increasing productivity through incremental changes in a company's processes. A kaizen event is a focused meeting intended to analyze a process and suggest possible improvements. These events may be a day-long affair or take as long as an entire week, depending on the level of improvement needed.

Select an Area for Improvement

Before you can start planning your company's kaizen event, you must choose an area of the business that needs improvement. Start by analyzing the productivity of each department within the company. Look for departments that struggle with missed deadlines, inferior quality or production bottlenecks. Once you decide on a department, try to find specific processes where small improvements can add the most value.

Choose the Team Members

At least half of the participating team should be employees directly involved in the process to be improved. Fill in the rest of your team with experts in the field and employees from other departments who may be able to offer a different perspective on the problem. Choose a team leader who is not directly involved with the process as he may be resistant to changing the current procedures. Make sure all team members can miss work for duration of kaizen event without hurting the company's productivity.

Implementation

Start your kaizen event by gathering your team and collecting data related to the problem. The two most common methods for analyzing the information you have gathered are the "5 Whys" and value-stream mapping. The "5 Whys" exercise encourages employees to ask "Why?" five times to drill down to the root of a problem. Value-stream mapping lays out key steps in the process as a flowchart. Once you have analyzed the pertinent data, decide on an action plan to implement changes that will boost the department's productivity.

Follow-Up

The last step of your kaizen event should include scheduling specific times to follow up and make sure the changes have been implemented correctly. Look at the relevant performance measurements for that department to see if the kaizen improvements have resulted in actual productivity increases. Your changes will not always achieve the results you had hoped for at the end of your meeting. You may need to hold another kaizen event to come up with a better solution.